


A Moon's Penumbra

by pastelmoondust



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Rebuild of Evangelion | Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition, Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Angst, Blood and Gore, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slow Burn, Tokyo Ghoul AU, Violence, ehh idk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-21 11:36:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11356713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastelmoondust/pseuds/pastelmoondust
Summary: Everyone in this city had something to hide, including him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so i know the tokyo ghoul au has been done before, but ive been wanting to make a full story of my own for a few years now, though i just never got around to doing it. im sorry that this first chapter is so short, but i just wanted to get it out at this point. i hope you all enjoy?? idk

Shinji stood, the chilling rain soaking through his shirt and skin, to his bones. Of course, he'd forgotten an umbrella at a time like this. It wasn't as if he even had a place to go back and get one from anymore. He'd been sent away from his previous home in favor of coming by the request of his father. It should've bothered him by the way his 'guardian' didn't hesitate to pack his things and buy a train ticket. He hugged his sodden cello case to his chest, wondering if it was even salvageable at this point.

Shinji takes another look at the water-logged image of the woman who, supposedly, promised to pick him up. He cringed at the obvious cleavage she sported. He desperately hoped that her intentions weren't as predatory as the photo suggested. He sighs, stuffing it back into his pocket. He looks up, struggling to spot the rickety blue car he could only assume was her's, but he was only met with disappointment when a wave of puddle-water left him even more drenched than he thought possible. The offending vehicle wasn't even what he was looking for. Shinji let out something between a moan and a sob, pressing his dripping face to the neck of his cello case. He felt his legs give out from beneath him, leaving him to sink onto the pavement, dejected. He couldn't control himself as his muffled weeping went unheard amidst the white noise of the rain.

People looked on with concern clouding their faces, but none acted. Of course, they felt sympathy toward such a disheartening scene, but did anyone really want to involve themselves? They walked on.

Eventually, the feeling of droplets pelting his back ceased. Perhaps, even nature felt bad for taking part in such a pitiful scene. That wasn't the case, however, as the sound of the accusing rain was still present. He agonizingly lifts his head, just enough to see a tall figure hovering over him. Startled, he jolts upright, blinking in shock through his grimy bangs. He was sure he was seeing things when wings looked to be wavering behind its back. Bewildered, he frantically rubs at his raw, tear-ridden eyes in an attempt to clear his blurry vision. He looks again, this time seeing a pale boy with wispy locks of silver hair that went in all directions. He had a crooked smile that made Shinji's chest feel strange, but filled with relief nonetheless. He was holding an umbrella, which accounted for the lack of rain between them. The boy looked like he was saying something, but Shinji couldn't hear. In his stupor, he then happens to catch the color of his eyes. Although they were dimmed by the overcast weather, there was still an odd hue to them. Upon closer inspection, he felt his heart stop.

_Blood._

No... It couldn't be...

A million signals in his brain were telling him to run.

But he couldn't move.

Shinji is broken out of his racing thoughts by the sound of chuckling.

"Are you alright? You seem a bit dazed," the boy above him smiles. Shinji exhales, clutching his throbbing chest. He doesn't answer, eyes resorting to the ground. The handle of the umbrella then obscures his view. Confused, he looks back up, not quite knowing what the boy wanted him to do with it. "Keep it. It's yours now." His smile softens as if to reassure him that he meant no harm. Gulping, Shinji takes the offered handle with a shaky hand, staring at the boy with an almost pleading look. He wasn't able to say anything as he turned on his heel, paying no attention to the rain that saturated his clothes and darkened his hair.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> im dead from writing so much, but i wanted to have a longer chapter as an apology for not updating for so long sobb ;; i really hope some of you will be able to like this story, since its something that has been sitting around in my mind for so long and is probably one the more developed of my stories so far, but i know i cant please everyone ahh

Shinji curls up in his seat, rubbing his arms in an attempt to produce some sort of heat on his shivering body.

"I still don't understand how you got so drenched, seeing you with your fancy purple umbrella and all." He groans inwardly to himself, opting to lean against the window. The woman, who was now named Katsuragi Misato, had eventually come around to pick him up. He found himself quite frustrated with how long she made him wait, but all was forgiven when he felt the welcoming warmth of the inside of her car. However, he still couldn't get the peculiar boy out of his head. Even though he could've been very much imagining things, he could've sworn he had seen the eyes of a ghoul. But if that were the case, then wouldn't he have tried to tear him apart right then and there? Would he have even treated him the way he did if he was a ghoul?

Everyone is basically taught from their birth that ghouls were cold-blooded murderers, and to avoid them at all costs. They were relentless, savage, and unfeeling, with no sense of value nor sentiment toward human life. They would only care about where else they'd find their next meal, or whenever they were able to kill someone just for fun. Nobody felt safe, even if it was throughout something as mundane as going to work or school for that day. It was understandably so, since that anyone, from a coworker to a best friend, could very well have led a double life. People often believed that ghouls were able to look as they please, that they made themselves look human so that they could have less difficulty toward finding a victim, to make relationships and give a false sense of security to the more gullible people, the people that opened their hearts to them figuratively and, in the end, literally. Others, however, believed that it was simply one of mother nature's sick jokes, that they were monsters without a choice. Though one thing was agreed upon everyone, and that was ghouls had no reason to exist in this world. Perhaps, ghouls even thought similarly, but they truly had no capability of feeling remorse, so that was probably just wishful thinking.

Maybe Shinji was just imagining things after all.

-

They pulled up in the parking lot of a massive glass building. When Misato shut off the ignition and began to gather her things, the realization that this was where he'd be meeting his father hit him like a brick. As part of him was relieved that Misato's aimless babbling finally came to a stop, he was still beyond anxious about seeing the same man who abandoned him when he had been just a child. Would he apologize for leaving all those years ago, then Shinji would cry tears of joy, forgive him, and from that point on they'd all live happily ever after? Somehow, he felt that wasn't going to be the case. He tries to calm his quickening breathing, bracing himself for what was to come.

-

Shinji struggles to keep up with Misato as she leads him throughout the large facility. There were people in gray suits that buzzed around all over in a frantic manner, diligent with whatever they had to get done. He absent-mindedly wonders what it would've been like to have a purpose like these people. to actually _mean_ something to someone, whether it be to their families, coworkers, or even bosses. Either way, they'd be contributing to something, not sitting around and wasting away as a result of their depression, not sitting around and waiting for someone to come and give them meaning. Shinji felt that if he looked up, he'd see everybody looking at him in disdain, wondering what such an incompetent boy was doing in a place like this, serving as nothing but a disruption to their work, which was, unlike him, something that actually mattered. He keeps his head down.

They both step into an elevator at the end of a hallway. Misato presses the button to the highest floor, the doors sliding shut behind them. Then, they just waited. It almost felt as if she activated a ticking time bomb, the numbers of the floors they passed counting down to something he didn't want to face. The mere thought of seeing his father again made him experience a strange amalgamation between feeling sick to his core and, oddly, hopeful, hopeful toward the tiny chance that he would love him again. However, there was the absolute nagging feeling that something just wasn't right, but he decides that it was just his cursed pessimism. He always opted for the worst, it was much safer that way; there wasn't much room for disappointment if something did end up going wrong. The sensation of the floor lifting beneath his feet didn't help, making his stomach lurch to his throat. After what felt like much too long, a resonating 'bing' sounded within the previously silent space. The sliding doors pulled open, like curtains on a stage to reveal the main performance. He heard Misato take a breath before walking out. Shinji, refusing to look up, obediently followed suit.

They both stopped moving to stand in, presumably, the middle of the room. Shinji could feel the focus all turned toward him, burning him from the inside out. Taking in a gulp of cold, stagnant air, he exhales. He repeats this process for what feels like years, praying that 'breathing all his anxieties out' would work for, at least, just this one time. Eventually, he manages to tilt his head up, just enough to see his father, sitting behind a desk with clothed fingers shielding his face. His orange-tinted glasses hid his eyes, but his eyebrows were visible, furled.

"... F-father I... I..." Shinji's throat closed up as soon as he spoke, rendering him ultimately speechless.

"Shinji," his father's husky voice boomed off the glass windows that made up the walls of the room. Shinji wanted to respond, to tell him that he missed him so much, to ask why he left him all those years ago.

"One of my administrators will drive you to a location in which you will exterminate an Angel. All of our soldiers are preoccupied and Rei is in the medical bay, so you will be responsible for destroying it. Do you understand?"

Shinji couldn't breathe.

His father, who he hadn't seen in ten years, called him from his already awful life so that he could basically murder his own son by sending him on a suicide mission in an attempt to kill one of the most, if not the most, ferocious ghouls alive? Was his existence so disposable as to where he wasn't even worth it to his own _father_? Shinji felt hot tears well up in his eyes, while at the same time an unfamiliar, startling rage boils up within him. It was almost as if it had been pent up somewhere inside him all this time.

"What the hell?! Are you insane Gendo?! He's your damn _son!_ This was not the agreement we had when you told me to take him here!" Misato shouted, staring the man in question with disbelief.

"Well, if he was really my son, then he'd go out on the mission." Gendo states as if it were simply common knowledge. Shinji gritted his teeth and shot his head up, facing his father with a new-found fury.

"Well, if you were really my father, then maybe you would've never left me to grow up into a damn freak who would become worth nothing more than _trash_ to you!" Shinji exclaimed, tears now dripping down his reddened cheeks. Gendo finally lifts his head from behind his gloved hands, responding to Shinji's breakdown with a cold, stone-hard expression that held no trace of sympathy. He immediately recoils, regretting everything he had just said. He looks on in horror as Gendo takes the radio that had previously been sitting off to the side of his desk and murmurs something into it. As if right on cue, the elevator opens to unveil two nurses wheeling a hospital gurney. There was a young girl with pale blue hair that laid upon its bloodied sheets. She looked to be in excruciating pain as she forces her way off the bed, collapsing as soon as she attempts to stand. On instinct, Shinji runs over to her side, grasping her frail body just before she hit the ground, cradling her as to not take any more impact.

"Rei, you are to go back to the site to finish what you've started." Gendo demands. Shinji feels sheer dread for this girl named Rei. If he didn't take up the mission, then she would surely die. Taking one last look at her broken form, he knew what he had to do.

"Fine. I'll do it."

-

The car feels like it was moving at light speed as Gendo's administrator, Ritsuko, drove him to the alleged location of the ghoul's last sighting. The Angels were an infinitely feared gang of ghouls that were vicious and powerful, who slaughtered anyone in their sight. They were the most well-known ghouls in Tokyo, the newspaper even containing a section made specifically for them. They had many members, which allowed them to be in multiple places at once. They were spread all around the city, some even saying that there was one for each ward; it was hard to grasp where they all resided after they've all done their bidding. Most of these were just rumors though, so for all Shinji knew everything could just be overdramatized by these news articles, just so that they would get more viewers and money in the end. Though that might've been the case, Shinji still held the briefcase he had been supplied close to his body as if he would find some sort of comfort in it. He had no idea what was in it and never wanted to know, but he no choice because he had to do what people told him. He was about to die because people told him to. New tears stung the raw skin around his eyes.

"The ghoul should still be around, continuing to wreak havoc as we speak," Ritsuko droned on, more to herself than to Shinji. "They think that now Rei's down, they own the place. It's more than likely they're calling more members over..."

Shinji thinks he should say something so that he could be heard and remind himself he existed as well. He can't force anything out other than a choked up sob from his throat. Ritsuko doesn't respond, keeping her eyes glued to the water-sodden streets.

-

Shinji feels himself jerk from his seat as the car pulls to a skidding stop, the force nearly knocking him over. He assumes that Ritsuko exited the car by the sound of the door opening and slamming shut. He all but curls in on himself more when the door to his side swings open. Ritsuko sighs. With her patience drained away and the urgency of the situation, she yanks Shinji out. He struggles to stand on his legs like a newborn foal, but Ritsuko makes no move to help him. Instead, she takes the briefcase out of his hands and opens it, revealing a thin metal pole. Shinji, perplexed by the unremarkable object, leans over to get a closer look. It was plain and small, with nothing particularly interesting about it. Ritsuko sighs, lifting it from its casing.

"What the hell were they even thinking? Only Rank 2 investigators get these things for a reason, and some of them still can't even use these because the connection just isn't there. Why would they think that a child, without even a smidge of experience, would even be able to make this work? I don't see why they didn't just give him a damn gun..." She mutters just under her breath. She didn't sound as if she intended Shinji to hear, but her voice still reached his ears. Just what was he getting himself into? Was all that he had to defend himself with was a stick that was barely longer than his forearm? The wind that whipped around his thin frame felt a lot colder, and the rain hurt more than ever.

Silently, Ritsuko takes his hand and places the pole on it. He hesitantly wraps his fingers around it, feeling the frigid bite of metal on his palm. Shinji brings it closer, seeing if there was some sort of button, _anything_ on it to make it into a weapon in some way, shape, or form. His eyes welled up. If this was all he had to fight with, then they really did send him out here to die. He lets out a sigh that rattles his ribcage, taking his free hand to hide the ugly expression forming on his face. At least no one would be able to tell his tears from the rain as both dripped off his cheeks. He wasn't worth it. None of this was worth it. He should just go and try to confront the ghoul anyway, specifically so that it would, hopefully, end his life itself. When Ritsuko would return with the news, she would tell them that at least he tried, that he died a 'hero'. Then his father would look on, his expression seemingly unchanging, but in actuality was concealing a grin behind his folded hands. He'd be the happiest he'd been in years now that his stupid son was finally dead.

He deserved to die.

As sobs began to wrack his body, he thinks he feels something shifting in his right hand. He ignores it, as it was probably just the rain making the pole slippery. He's only interested, yet alarmed when he hears an unrestrained gasp from Ritsuko. He wearily lowers his hand from his eyes.

What he sees nearly makes him fall over. The pole had started to transform, elongating itself into a length taller than himself. Then, all at once, a magnificent, green and purple structure bubbles from the metal, taking the shape of what could be loosely described as a sword. Shinji stares, mouth agape, unknowing of what to think of the six-foot weapon that he now grasped in his hand. What exactly did he do to make this happen..? He's trying to recall, to see if he remembered accidentally brushing his finger against something or activating a motion sensor... 

He's brought back to reality when Ritsuko clears her throat, aiming to get Shinji's attention.

"Alright, Ikari. The Angel you'll be fighting wears a mask that looks like a bird skull. You'll be taking this shortcut through the alleyway, and that should take you straight into the third ward. If you don't see anything, then just stick to the alley and hang around there. It should come to you eventually if you just stand there, looking like fresh meat, especially," Before Shinji could even react, she turns away on her heel, stepping back into her car. "Don't worry, I'll be monitoring you from here. I don't have much experience, but I have a gun if things get too crazy. Stay safe." She finishes, closing the door behind her. Shinji just stood there in disbelief. How could her excuse for not fighting be that she _didn't have any experience?_ Shinji didn't even have the slightest clue as to what was going on, yet he was a better candidate because of what? Out of spite, he begins to walk through the alleyway just so he didn't have to be around her anymore. 

-

There seems to be a running theme of Shinji immediately regretting things as he stumbles through the dark, his breathing compromised as he was half-running, half-walking to get through quicker. At least he didn't have his giant weapon weighing him down and exhausting him even more, as it turned back to its 'travel-size' shortly after he began his trek. Though, the murky clouds in the sky made everything that much more dim and harder to see. The pitter-patter of rain was amplified on the metal roofs of the buildings around him, though despite that, he still heard his heartbeat drumming in his ears. What if the Angel knew he was there? What if it was watching him now, waiting for a moment to ambush and tear into him while he wasn't looking? Shinji gulped, holding his weapon close and gripping it even tighter. 

He's barely halfway through when he abruptly hears screaming. Shinji starts running, trying not to slip as he rushes to the end of the alleyway. By the time he reaches the opening, he's pushing through a sea of people all running in the same direction in a frenzied panic. He wishes he could run with them, to not face what the source of their fear was. But he couldn't run away. He wouldn't run away. With a final push, he makes it into the clearing, but he's frozen in place by the sight in front of him. A little girl had her arms held up in self-defense as someone held her pinned to the ground. Shinji catches a glimpse of a protrusion from their face and realizes in terror that it looked like a beak. _The Angel you'll be fighting wears a mask that looks like a bird skull._ echoes through his head.

The ghoul, seeing as it was the part that was most vulnerable, bit her arm. Its teeth sunk into her flesh as she cried out in pain, reveling in the way her blood seeped into its mouth. It chewed, vermillion splattering the sidewalk. Shinji's vision was filled with red.

_I mustn't run away, I mustn't run away, I mustn't run away..._

Before he could pull himself together, the ghoul stops what it was doing. Shinji tries to get himself to move, but his feet felt like they were cemented to the pavement. The girl is still screeching out in misery when the ghoul twists its head around toward Shinji. It swiveled around like a broken cog, its head veering off to the side like a doll with a broken neck. The bird skull stared at him as if it could read his mind and were picking apart the very depths of his soul piece by piece. Shinji stared back, unsure of what to feel or what to think anymore. His mind felt numb. His weapon took shape as the Angel stood up, blood and saliva dripping from its face. Inky black appendages spill out from its back, tipped in red like the blood in its mouth. Shinji doesn't have time to react before an agonizing pain blossoms from his middle. It all transpires so quickly that he barely registers what had happened. He then looks down to see that one of the Angel's limbs had shot its way straight through his body.

Shinji's mouth gurgles with blood as he blacks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to let me know your thoughts if you want!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so,,, ive had this chapter done since november, but never posted it because it had a lot of issues and i didnt know how to fix them so yeah,,, i ended up coming back to it recently so now i think its decent enough,, i hope you enjoy?
> 
> (also, a warning just in case: this chapter has somewhat graphic descriptions of blood and gore)

_Ritsuko heard screaming and sprinted toward the sound. Her gun in hand, she turned the corner. She points her weapon out in front of her, only to nothing. A little girl with an arm mangled and chewed down to the white of her bones seemed to have passed out in exhaustion. The Angel laid on the ground in close vicinity with its limbs torn off. Its kagune, arms, and legs were strewn about the scene, still-fresh blood emptying out of each of them. Ritsuko looks on in astonishment, wondering how a mere child, how someone like Gendo Ikari's son could've even been capable enough to have done this to a ghoul. She averts her eyes, only to the boy in question with crimson pooling from his mouth and back._

-

Shinji's eyes shoot open.

_...Another unfamiliar ceiling..._

He was soaked in sweat, making the sheets covering him stick to his skin. He was freezing cold, the only thing he had to battle it off being his damp blankets and a thin gown.

Where was he? The only thing he remembers was encountering the Angel he was assigned to kill. How did he end up here...?

He starts to get up but is stopped by an excruciating ache in his middle. He gasps, falling back to the bed and clutching the area.

"You shouldn't try to move," a soft voice murmurs.

Shinji turns his head to be met with a stoic, red gaze.

_How long has she been standing there?_

It was the same girl he'd seen on the gurney, the same girl his father had nearly sent away instead of him, having no regard for her impaired condition. His eyes narrow at the thought of him. He was sure now that he never wanted to have anything to do with him again.

He tries to chase him out of his mind. It made him nauseous just thinking about it all. 

"The commander sent me here to check on you."

He guesses he wasn't done thinking about him just yet.

"I-I... I don't need anybody to check on me." he says weakly, his voice cracking from the dryness of his throat. As pathetic as he sounded, he still didn't mean for it to come off as so bitter, but he didn't want to deal with anything right now. Especially if all she was going to do was talk about Gendo.

She exits the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

-

"Hey, Shinji-kun! You feelin' better, champ?"

Shinji sighs, giving up on trying to get the bland-looking hospital food into his mouth. He'd only woken up a few minutes ago, having gone back to sleep after _she_ had left. He was far too exhausted to let the boisterous voice at the door know that he acknowledged its presence.

It doesn't matter as Misato all but barges in through the door anyway. He still doesn't say anything when she plops herself down onto the chair next to his bed.

"Alright, I got some good news, so listen up, okay?" Shinji says nothing. He doesn't know how anything could be good news when he had a gaping hole in his body, but whatever.

"Okay, so it turns out you'll be getting out of the hospital within today, isn't that great?" Shinji looks up at that. Wouldn't an injury like his take at least several weeks or so to heal enough to a point where he could even handle standing up again?

"Hold on... Today? How long have I been asleep?" Shinji fidgets with a loose thread on his blanket.

"Ah, let's see... I'd say about three days now, if you included today, that is."

So... he was really getting out of the hospital just after three days? Something didn't seem right...

"Wait! Before you start asking any more questions, I'll go ahead and save you the trouble! Compared to a few hours ago with the last check-up you just had, it just so happens that you're healing pretty quickly! I mean, it's not like you're anywhere near completely healed, but for a wound as big as that it would normally take much longer to see your type of results! Honestly, it's a miracle that you were even still alive when they took you in, so consider yourself lucky!"

Shinji was dumbstruck. Now that she mentioned it, he was still sore but wasn't _as_ sore as he was when he'd first woken up. Maybe this place just had really good painkillers? He didn't know if the hospital was lying just so they could get rid of him as soon as possible, but either way, he was more than happy to leave.

"The CCG has already assigned you an apartment you'll be staying in," Misato continues. Shinji sighs in relief. After all this, he'll finally be able to have some peace and quiet. He'd have a long bath, relax-

"But, I thought that it would've been better to have someone to keep you company, so instead,"

_Oh no..._

"You're going to be living with me!"

-

Shinji leaned back on his seat, the SDAT player he dug out of his bags muffling the sound of the world. No matter how many times he replayed the memories of what had happened so far, he failed to make sense of any of it. The Angels, Gendo, the strange girl named Rei. It was all just so confusing. 

He thought back to his fight with the Angel. The way its tentacle-like appendages just pierced through him with no resistance. The way his own blood tasted before he fell to the ground, unmoving.

Shinji pulled out his earbuds, placing them on his lap.

"Katsuragi-san...?"

"Aw, don't be so formal with me, Shin-chan! Misato is just fine by me!" Shinji sighed in exasperation.

"M-Misato..."

"Yeah, what's up?"

He twirled the cords of his SDAT player through his fingers. "What... What happened to the Angel?"

Misato gave him a side-eye, as to not take her attention too much off the road.

"Ah, don't you remember?" she smiles, a strange expression welling up in her features. Shinji wasn't sure if it was just him, but her voice sounded like it was caught in her throat. He looks up at her, confused.

"... No?"

Misato's eyebrows furled as if an unwanted thought appeared in her head. After a minute or two of silence, it seemed to take her great effort to finally say:

"... You killed it."

-

Shinji watches the bathtub filled with water. The sound is deafening.

_"Ritsuko found it, just laying there,"_

He sighs, putting his head in his hands.

_"Pieces of it were everywhere... Its arms, its legs,"_

The air was stuffy and warm. It was hard to breathe.

_"She said it was something that she'd never seen the likes of before. I mean,"_

He hunches over, his middle throbbing.

_"You must have a real talent."_

Shinji gasps, opening his eyes. 

His hands had made their way down, clutching his shirt in the area of his injury. He exhales, relaxing his grip. He goes to lean on the edge of the tub, only to see that it was overflowing. He yelps in surprise, rushing to turn off the faucet. The water stills, allowing him to see himself reflected upon its pristine surface. He sees his hair sticking out in different directions, framing his blotchy face and tired eyes. Despite how much sleep he'd been getting, his eyelids were droopy and lined with the colors a bruise would boast. He looks away, focusing on peeling off his clothes rather than how distasteful he looked.

As he's tossing his garments in the hamper, he catches his eye on the mirror. He sees his bandages, crusty and heavy with blood. He desperately wants to look away, but he knows he couldn't leave them on forever.

With trembling hands, he unravels the gauze at an agonizingly slow pace. He draws it out for as long as possible, not wanting to see what lied underneath. However, he could not deny the inevitable as it piled around his feet, staining his skin with the blood that hadn't yet dried. His breath hitches when the last of it comes away. 

There was a giant gash about where his stomach was, a deep abyss of red and glistening flesh. Shinji felt like he was going to vomit. He panicked, throwing open a random cabinet and rummaging his hand through it, praying he could find a first-aid kit, _something_ to hide the horrible laceration on his body. Nearly crying out of relief, he pulls out a small, white box with a red cross on it. He fumbles it open, practically emptying its contents just to grab the bandages. He screws his eyes shut, unraveling the fresh gauze and wrapping it around himself like a madman. He was going so fast that his arms ached, but he had to get rid of it, had to make the red go away-

"Shinji-kun?"

Misato's voice from behind the door made his actions come to an abrupt halt. He opens his eyes to see a thick layer of bandages now covering the gruesome sight. Blood was all over the floor, having trickled down his belly while struggling through the cabinet. He exhales, taking the scissors that remained in the box and snipping off the excess material. He worked to secure the binding in place, his hands shaking from what remained of adrenaline. 

"Shinji-kun! Are you okay in there?" Misato persists, her voice heavy with worry as she knocks on the door.

"Y-yeah, I'm... fine."

"Oh, okay! That's good, I heard a lot of noise so I wanted to make sure nothing bad happened, you know?" she chuckles uneasily. Shinji rolls his eyes, grabbing his towel to, hopefully, wipe away most the blood. He'd definitely scrub this out later.

"Well, I brought you something that you're probably gonna need, so I'll just hand it to you from here." At this, Shinji looks up. The door slowly inched open, just enough to reveal Misato's hand, holding a roll of plastic wrap.

-

Shinji lays on the bed in his new room, staring at the ceiling. His SDAT player droned on, serving as no more than a distraction from his troubled thoughts. Without the music, there would be nothing but noise in his head, multiple voices in a hushed whisper making him believe in everything that was horrible in himself. Making him believe that people like Misato only put up with him because he suddenly had worth, because he, somehow, managed to 'kill' an Angel.

Restless, he shifts to lay on his side. He wonders if he had truly been the one to end the Angel's life, even going as far as tearing its body apart as Misato described. He wonders if she was lying, to make him feel better and acting as if it was all over now. She wouldn't want to tell him the truth, or else he'd break down and cry, screaming that it was all his fault. All his fault that the Angel was still alive. All his fault that people would be punished because of his own mistake. He didn't even know if that little girl survived.

He curls up, pulling the blankets over his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know not a lot happened in this chapter, but if things go as planned, the next one should be pretty interesting! thank you for reading ;v;


End file.
